22nd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

This is the weekly “best of” nuclear energy blogs. We hope you enjoy it.

At Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus reports her new book is out. It is titled “Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power Development.”

She writes that while there have been many histories of nuclear power, most focus on the weapons program and the larger-than-life personalities that helped initiate the nuclear age. A lot of nuclear developments and breakthroughs get short shrift. This book tells the history of nuclear power primarily through the stories of the many technological developments.

At Next Big Future, Brian Wang has two compelling blog posts. First, he reports on how laser enrichment of uranium could be made more efficient. Brian also gave a talk at the TedX conference in the Bay Area on October 5th on energy technologies. Brian is a futurist and his views are always thought provoking. Check out his slides from the talk, which are now online.

At the Nuclear Green Revolution, Charles Barton has a blog post titled “Reverse engineering the future of energy.”

This post calls attention to further problems in renewable energy plans, problems that appear to limit the ability of renewable energy sources to keep the grid stable. A renewable dominated grid appears likely to rely on carbon emitting natural gas power generation facilities, for peak power, and to respond to summer and winter temperature variations. While conventional nuclear power approaches do not appear to offer satisfactory solutions, molten salt nuclear approaches appear to offer attractive solutions to a number of post carbon energy options.

At NEI Nuclear Notes, Everett Redmond, director, Nonproliferation and Fuel Cycle Policy at NEI, has his first blog post on Yucca Mountain. He writes “What is certain in policy consideration is that we will be securely storing used fuel in above-ground facilities for an extended period of time.”

At Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman takes reports from the Nuclear Fabrication Conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 21, and writes that the metal benders are unhappy about delays for award of loan guarantees. You can’t make stuff if people aren’t building nuclear reactors.

There are new nuclear energy graphics at the PopAtomicblog. Suzanne Hobbs always has something creative to show us. Also, check out her guest post here at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

Areva’s North America: Next Energy blog reports that 1300 people are working on the construction of two new reactors at Southern’s Vogtle site in Georgia. Three to four times that number are likely to be employed once the utility gets its NRC license to construct and operate the plants. It is a view of the power of the nuclear industry to create jobs.

At Yes Vermont Yankee, Meredith Angwin reports that Connecticut is worried about what happens to the New England electrical grid if the Vermont Yankee reactor closes in 2012. Hey, if Connecticut is worried, why isn’t Vermont?

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights brings closure to the ghosts of the tragic accident at the SL-1 reactor in Idaho. No love triangle was involved, just failed machinery and human error.

Rod’s blog post is one of the most accessible technical descriptions of the causes of the accident.

Please take a few minutes to read Rod’s post because the more people who do, the more it will give closure to all the ghosts that were created many years ago.

In this way these spirits that haunt its history will now depart the earth and go to a place of peace where neither man nor any of his creations ever return.